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Highly functional work-teams

by Rod Smith

A highly functioning team, school, church, or organization:

1. Sticks with an essential, identified, agenda.
2. Knows why it was formed and why it continues to exist.
3. Knows what it wants to accomplish and can measure its progress.
4. Values individuals, values the “whole” without losing sight of either.
5. Regularly articulates group and individual roles, goals, and dreams.
6. Discourages rescuing (saving, over-compensating) behavior among team members.
7. Encourages necessary and helpful conflict.
8. Encourages internal dialogue and negotiation yet sets limits on each.
9. Addresses gossip, rumor mongering, and other group destroyers and cancers.
10. Plays at least as hard as it works.
11. Acknowledges necessary and helpful hierarchy without being driven or defined by it.
12. Encourages downward mobility or authentic power gained through service.